§ MR. CAINETo ask the Secretary of State for India if it is due to the altered significance of the symbol £, as used during the last two years, that while in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Indian Budget for 1899–1900 the capital liabilities of the Government of India exceeded the assets by £53,029,000, in the present year the assets exceed liabilities by only £1,240,000; if not will he explain to what is the reduction due.
(Answered by Secretary Lord G. Hamilton.) I understand the hon. Member to suggest that in the Explanatory Memorandum published in 1899, it was stated that the liabilities of the Government of India exceeded their assets by £53,029,000. This suggestion is erroneous. On page 25 of the Memorandum in question the balance of assets and liabilities was shown as follows: Excess of assets over liabilities in India, Rx.32,010,000; excess of liabilities over assets in England, £53,029,000. Converting the Indian figures at the rate of 15 rupees to the pound, the excess of liabilities over assets 385 in both countries on the 31st of March, 1899, is thus £31,689,000, or.£21,340,000 less than the figures given by the hon. Member. The improvement shown in the statement for the present year is not due to the change in the form of accounts. The chief items contributing to it (besides the normal growth in the value of railway and irrigation works due to expenditure on construction beyond the amount provided by borrowing) are the acquisition of the Great Indian. Peninsula Railway by the creation of annuities, according to the system explained in the footnote to the statement, and at greater length on page 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum of July, 1901, the creation of a Gold Reserve Fund from the profits on coinage, the increase in the loans made by the Government of India from their balances to corporations and Native States, and the increase in the cash balances in India and England.